The Death of Gary Webb: The CIA, Crack Cocaine and the Black Community

[Jaha]

The Death of Gary Webb: The CIA, Crack Cocaine and the Black Community
By Akbar Muhammad


A. Akbar Muhammad

Recently, I returned from Tripoli, Libya where I represented Minister Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam at the 7th World Islamic Call Society Conference. Muslim scholars and leaders gathered from throughout the world to discuss the current state of affairs in their respective regions and countries. While in route to the U.S., I had a layover in Amsterdam. I had the opportunity to sit next to a physician while riding a bus on my way to the airport. We talked poignantly about various things. This doctor said words to me that I will never forget. We discussed the pandemic of diabetes and its effect on the Black and Native American communities, the problem of alcohol amongst the Native Americans and the crack cocaine epidemic that has swept across America at a rapid pace. He indicated that "these B------- put an ingredient in crack cocaine which specifically makes the user (Black man or woman) addicted after using it only a few times." After I arrived in America and was blessed to hear Minister Farrakhan address the Crips and the Bloods in Newark, New Jersey, I reflected on this conversation.

On Monday, December 12, 2004, I read in the obituary section an article regarding the death of Gary Webb, the reporter for the San Jose Mercury News and author of the book entitled "Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion." On Friday, December 10, 2004, movers found the body of Gary Webb in his California home. As they entered the door a note attached to it said, "Please do not enter. Call 911 and ask for an ambulance." He was found with a gunshot wound to the head that was later described as a suicide.

For those of you who may not remember this reporter, on August 18, 1996, Gary Webb wrote a series of articles for the San Jose Mercury News bearing the same name as the book to expose the fact that the CIA worked with a drug cartel group out of Nicaragua, in particular, who brought in cocaine which was later converted to crack cocaine. This crack cocaine, which first hit the west coast and then spread throughout America was the new craze in the Black community. In one of the reports that I read there was a concern amongst the CIA regarding the growing population of Black people. In an article posted on www.conspiracydigest.com, the site quotes an affidavit, which was part of a lawsuit brought by former Green Beret William Tyree against the CIA. The CIA operative US Army Colonel Al Carone stated, that "at the CIA there were a few people in the right positions who blamed the decline of American culture on people of color living in the United States, that the blame of the fall of American culture began with the creation of the National Security Memorandum-200 which stated among other things the concern of overpopulation in the United States which many at the CIA attributed to the birthrate among people of color, and that there were some at the CIA that felt that physical slavery could be replaced by pharmaceutical slavery and that's why African American gangs, i.e. 'Bloods' and 'Crips,' were singled out for distributing the drugs brought into the United States by the CIA."

Crack cocaine has made zombies out of many Black men and women and has destroyed future generations of our people. This pharmaceutical slavery that Colonel Carone talked about has ravished our communities. Congresswoman Maxine Waters and Dick Gregory began to speak out and attack the government for allowing the CIA to engage in the movement of drugs that was directed towards the Black community. After this information was exposed former President Clinton was re-elected and it was pushed under the rug while the major media moved to discredit Gary Webb.

Large parts of the prison population are in prison as a result of a drug related crimes. These victims, millions of Black men and women now languishing in prisons throughout America, are the new slaves of this era with all of the corporations capitalizing on prison deals that this free labor brings them. The war in Iraq is reminiscent to the war in Nicaragua. It is a war for nothing but profit and gain. Black men and women should wake up to what has happened to them and examine that this is the government that has asked many of our young men and women to sacrifice their lives to fight in the war in Iraq, a war based on a lie.

This menace to Black society has entered into our country and devastated our society. There are very few families that have not been affected by the crack cocaine epidemic. I have a personal experience with the father of my two beautiful grandchildren. He has struggled with this addiction, has gone to prison and has been placed in the best of rehabilitation centers. All of this only to come out and fall victim again. On many occasions, I have spoke to him after his release and had felt his sincerity that he wanted to stay away from this drug, but to no avail.

As the reparations movement takes center stage, one of the many areas that this government will have to examine is the damage done by the new form of pharmaceutical slavery. The proliferation of crack cocaine was aided and abetted by the CIA, which is a branch of the American government. They were and are allowed to protect those who are spreading this destructive substance among the American population. Part of the reparations platform should be to redeem Black people and free them from their prison cells, in light of the fact that a large percentage of the prison population are incarcerated for drug related offenses. They need true rehabilitation and an opportunity to return to a normal life.

We thank Gary Webb for his research and exposing the CIA, crack cocaine and Contra connection. We now have the responsibility in light of his death at the young age of 49 years old to go after the culprits responsible for the spread of this drug across America. We have the responsibility as the reparations movement moves center stage to make sure that America repairs this damage that she has created. We hope that the message that Minister Farrakhan delivered to the Crips and Bloods in Newark, NJ would be spread across America into every community, prison and halfway house. The young men and women who are caught up in this new form of "pharmaceutical slavery" crack cocaine must be liberated. Let the scholars and researchers among us gather all the information necessary to expose this tragedy of crack cocaine in our community. You can start by reading Gary Webb's book "Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion." Go online and read the Inspector General Frederick P. Hitz's Volume One and Volume Two investigative report on the CIA issued July 29, 1998, where he confirmed the information that Webb exposed was absolutely true and just the tip of the iceberg. Read the book written by Robert Parry, "The Lost History, Contras, Cocaine and the Project Truth." See the Congressional records dated February 11, 1982 where Maxine Waters exposed a written agreement between the CIA and the Justice Department. Also a book entitled "Defrauding America" by Rodney Stichs.

The allegation that Gary Webb's death was a suicide is amazing considering how many ex-agents or individuals who have gone against the CIA and other governmental institutions either disappear or commit suicide. To honor the sacrifice made by Gary Webb, this case should be reopened. Even though the media tried to discredit him, everyday in the Black community we are facing the issue of crack cocaine destroying our people and families.


PRESS CONTACT: A. Akbar Muhammad, Africa and the World, 314-963-0913, africandtheworld@aol.com

[DarkManJah]

When he broke that story in the newpaper he was working for, not long after that, C-SPAN covered a townhall meeting between Maxine Walter's congressional district and the then CIA director. Dude got up there and was talkin' bullshit. Folks in the audience startd going madd crazy, calling for him to get his ass off the stage. An elder sister talked and wept and wept and wept about her grand daughter becoming a crack addict, how she lived, died, leaving all her children with her, motherless. i felt her pain. Her's was one of many testimonies Sister Maxine allowed the people to hear. i lived their pain. i got hooked on crack for 11 straight months, from Aug. 90 to June 23, 1991, my last hit on the pipe. i was in like flint, baby, six days a week, couldn't get high on sunday cause didn't work on sundays... Quit coldturkey (well, had 6 months of crying spells), no Jesus, no rehab, with just the sheer desire/passion to change my life. Looked back 3 times over the following 2 years, caught myself each moment, and went forward. 4 years later, ran into an old college friend who began enlightening me, turning me towards all things militantly Afrikan, providing me with a new passion . To this day, to this very day, i am grateful that somebody finally put a "face" on the perpetrators who are RESPONSIBLE. Gary ain't kill himself. Gary got in the way. We say: fuck tha po-lice. Well, fuck tha gov-ment, too. And may Ronald Reagan rot in his Jesus' hell along with the rest of his crew.

[Akyeame Kwame]

http://gnn.tv/videos/viewer.php?id=30&spd=hi

AK